fish mayo

Mayonnaise was on the short list of foods reviled in my family home. It was taken so seriously I used to order McChickens without sauce (dry). My dad still refuses to touch it. We once went to lunch together at the restaurant I had just started working at, I ordered the whole menu I think aside from the two dishes they always had on. One, a highlight for me, was a goat dish with tonnato. Knowing the principles of the restaurant at the time it must have been made with bonito instead of the moist canned fish. It also had what must have been a mountain of black pepper in the sauce, giving it spice and texture that, to my mayo-sensitive taste at the time, offered balance to that tonnato, to that dish.

Starting so far from the source, the Northern Italian sauce commonly served with veal, opened up my curiosity and six years later I find myself in my kitchen closer to emulating the classic.

In Benedetta Vitali's cookbook Soffritto: Tradition and Innovation in Tuscan Cooking she includes vitello tonnato in a chapter called "Layering Flavors" intended to "offer a series of recipes based on the search for tastes to assemble and mix, with the aim of finding unusual and interesting combinations". Obviously not relegated to only food, this is also how one thinks about putting wine and food together on the table. You could bluntly call pairing a flavor layer and as fair weather pairing fans it proves re-invigorating and inspiring to tear things down to the scaffolding and think about the construction. I think a lot about the scene from It's Always Sunny where Danny Devito's character Frank says he likes to make the sandwich in his mouth because it tastes better.

Because I'm curious about the potential of the flavor layer, freeing the tuna from the veal, I don't use Vitali's recipe which classically calls for using some jus in the sauce itself further marrying the sauce and meat together. As common in my kitchen I turn to Rachel Roddy. Her method is good for this because while some recipes ask you to add mayonnaise to a fish puree, she has you add your olive oil into your eggs and fish mimicking mayonnaise making itself. Marcella Hazan insists that you use 100% olive oil mayonnaise for tonnato and I agree. The flavor is usually too strong but with the multiple fishes and other seasonings the grassiness is balanced and essential to the dish. So doing it yourself you know what you're getting into. The process of making mayonnaise itself has a leisurely magic to it, asking one fat to absorb another close to infinitely without breaking. Bearing witness to that kitchen magic is always a treat. Lastly, building the sauce in one blender is more economical to clean, hopefully allowing you to relax an take your time with your oil addition.

Roddy serves her sauce with tomatoes, as does Helen Rosner in her recent article for the New Yorker. Local tomatoes aren't in season yet but are close enough that it feels sensible to hold off on a dish that celebrates them. I picked potatoes, partially because potato rhymes with potato so you aren't robbed of the joy of saying "potato tonnato" which nicely mimics "potayto potahto". But also in the spirit of Vitali's suggestion. This ultimately ends up combining two fridge salad classics, the tuna salad & the potato salad into one. And I think it's a good place to start. The recipe makes for more sauce than you probably need for potatoes so you can play around with it for a few meals. We used this sauce the other day to dress pork sandwiches.

Tonnato (adapted from Rachel Roddy's column A kitchen in Rome)

Some people put capers in their sauce but I follow RR’s lead and use parsley, leaving capers as garnish. Also while I affectionately call this fish mayo it’s only sort of true. You are looking for a silky texture, expecting something stiffer that mimics Hellman’s will only lead to an undeserved disappointment in yourself.

2 anchovy fillets

160g can tuna (120g drained) this should be written on the can

1 clove garlic

1 whole egg plus one yolk

1 tsp dijon mustard

small handful parsley (optional)

150ml olive oil

pepper and maybe salt depending on your anchovies

1. Add the anchovies, drained tuna, garlic, eggs, mustard, and parlsey into your blender and pulse until smooth.
2. Once smooth, continue to pulse and add your olive oil in bit by bit as you would with mayonnaise. After the oil’s been incorporated, taste and add pepper and salt if you think it needs it.

Add a glass of wine on the side to keep layering flavors.

potatoes & caper leaves in a sea of sauce